London: Exiled Muhajir Leader Altaf Hussain Charged With Encouraging Terrorism Over Speech Attacking Pak Establishment

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) founder Altaf Hussain, living in exile in the UK since the 1990s, has been charged with encouraging terrorism in connection with a speech relayed to followers in Pakistan by Scotland Yard on Thursday (9 October), reports Press Trust Of India.

Hussain will appear before Westminster Magistrates' Court in London charged under Section 1(2) of the UK's Terrorism Act 2006 with encouraging terrorism. Also the Met Police had been liaising with Pakistani authorities in relation to their ongoing enquiries.

He had founed the MQM in 1984 as political platform to voice the concerns of ‘Muhajirs’ the Urdu-speaking immigrants who chose Pakistan after the Partition in 1947.

On 22 August 2016 Hussian called Pakistan, "a cancer for entire world," and in August this year, Hussain said that Pakistan's civil and military establishments have been misleading and duping the masses of the country over the issue of Kashmir for the past 72 years.

In a statement released by the Met Police, it said, "On 22 August, 2016, [he] published a speech to crowds gathered in Karachi, Pakistan, which were likely to be understood by some or all of the members of the public to whom they were published as a direct or indirect encouragement to them to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism and at the time he published them, intended them to be so encouraged, or was reckless as to whether they would be so encouraged."